How to Construct the Inheritance and Innovation of University Culture

Author: Zhang Qizhi Source: China Higher Education No.20 20 1 1 As a great national culture in the world, the history of China is a history of cultural inheritance and innovation. Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, although Zhou is an ancient country, its life has been reformed. From the overthrow of the imperial system by the Revolution of 1911 to the new democratic revolution, and then to the construction of Socialism with Chinese characteristics, China has made continuous progress and development through historical inheritance and innovation. Take Confucianism as an example. From Confucius' founding of Confucianism to Confucian Classics in Han Dynasty, and then to Neo-Confucianism in Song Dynasty, modern Neo-Confucianism has been passed down from generation to generation, which has promoted and stimulated ideological innovation and accumulated into tradition. This kind of inheritance and innovation was realized through the ancient education system (such as Imperial College and Academy). Western civilization also developed through Athens Academy, medieval churches and modern universities. Therefore, universities play a very important role in cultural inheritance and innovation. It can be said that the inheritance and innovation of culture is the basic mission of universities. General Secretary Hu Jintao clearly expounded this view, which is the key to the future of higher education in China. Why is the mission of a university the inheritance and innovation of culture? This is determined by the position of universities in society. Whether a society can develop healthily depends on the development of people, not just the richness of things. Universities play an important role in human development. It should cultivate talents; The essence of talent is human. Without talents, the true meaning of the university will be lost. Confucius opposed Fan Chi's research on crops in the past, not to look down on farmers in a sense, but to emphasize the cultural responsibility of scholars. Confucius believes that the mission of culture is more important than farming. If universities overemphasize skill education and neglect cultural education, personality cultivation may be insufficient. Paying more attention to technology than education and application than foundation has been biased in culture and needs to be corrected urgently. Modernization is essentially the realization of human modernization, not just the modernization of things. People's all-round development must have a cultural background; Social innovation and progress must be supported by culture. To realize the mission of inheriting and innovating university culture, I think we should think about it from five aspects: First, position the mission of the university from the level of knowledge society and knowledge management. Since 1980s, some scholars have realized the great changes brought by the information society. Some people think that 2 1 century is a knowledge society, and the representative figure of western management is Peter? Peter drucker emphasized that the knowledge society and knowledge economy decide that the management direction in the 2 1 century is knowledge management. The organizational form of knowledge management is a learning organization. The new learning organization is based on culture. Therefore, universities play an important role in leading the society, which will be very different from the past. The so-called knowledge society is a society in which people's autonomy and initiative are fully exerted. From a historical point of view, social development is a process of continuous awakening and improvement of human beings. In the process of development, human beings constantly enhance their autonomy and initiative, and finally move towards freedom and harmony. This is what Marx called the alliance of free men. Knowledge society is the intermediate link leading to human liberation. The characteristic of knowledge society is that people's innovation ability is greatly increased, and social team integration replaces hierarchical structure. In this process, cultural inheritance and innovation play an irreplaceable role. In this process, universities need to adapt to the forward-looking needs of the knowledge society. This is what General Secretary Hu Jintao said in his speech: Knowledge innovation is the core element of national competitiveness. He said that higher education, as an important combination of the first productivity of science and technology and the first resource of talents, plays a very important role in national development. This combination needs cultural inheritance and innovation as a lasting and effective support. The second is to determine the foundation of cultural inheritance and innovation from the core level of culture. The core of culture is values, and human behavior is dominated by internal values. Therefore, we need to determine the basis of inheritance and innovation from the core level of culture. This requires our university to give priority to the cultivation of values and moral education. By improving and promoting moral education, moral education can be implemented on the basis of cultivating values and personality. Without the inheritance of excellent cultural traditions, innovation is likely to be arrogant; Without the value recognition of truth, goodness and beauty, innovation is likely to be distorted and fraudulent; Without a sound personality, innovation is likely to be used by utilitarian prejudice. Any technical study needs to be based on the cultivation of spirit and personality. Therefore, according to the mission of cultural inheritance and innovation, universities should improve the educational content through reflection and reform, inherit in cultural innovation, and closely combine with the spirit of the times. The third is to determine the orientation of cultural inheritance and innovation from the level of national and national development. Our university has a tradition of attaching importance to political education, which should be affirmed. Politics is a patriotic concept of family affairs, state affairs and world affairs. It is a sense of national responsibility to worry about the world first and enjoy it later. Cultural inheritance and innovation need guidance, which is not pure politics, but also needs cultural support. Single economic development or single political dominance may cause social imbalance. In the political education of universities, if there is no cultural support, it may go astray, and there may be a disconnect between moral personality and political ideas. The lack of personality and morality caused by previous political movements has a certain relationship with the single emphasis on politics and the neglect of cultural support. Universities should learn this lesson, persist in and enrich political education, link culture and politics to train students, and infiltrate cultural factors into political concepts. It is impossible for a university to stay away from politics. The key is to combine it with culture and make it scientifically convincing. Form the correct orientation of inheritance and innovation. The fourth is to determine the connotation of cultural inheritance and innovation from the perspective of people's all-round development. Cultural inheritance and innovation, the all-round development of the same person, is a whole of one and two, two and one. Therefore, how to promote cultural inheritance and innovation in the content of university education needs serious study. I realize that General Secretary Jin Hu's cultural heritage and innovative mission put forward new requirements for university education, including: combining skills education with moral education; Combination of moral education and aesthetic education; Combine the cultivation of values with scientific methods. Through these three combinations, the connotation of university education has been enriched and improved. On the one hand, it needs detailed argumentation, and it can also be explored through pilot projects. Its purpose is to solve the contradiction between professional division of labor and people's all-round development. In the hierarchical society before industrialization, the social division of labor hindered the all-round development of people; In the industrialized society, the division of labor in technology has split the integrity of things to some extent and hindered the all-round development of people. Cultural inheritance and innovation need to explore a new way between specialization and integration. Fifth, the method of cultural inheritance and innovation is communication and integration. The inheritance and innovation of culture cannot be achieved by one discipline or one aspect. So in terms of methods, this mission should be realized through communication and integration. When Tsinghua National College was founded in the 1920s, emphasizing the attention of scholars was the expression of communication and integration. It is this exchange and integration that made Tsinghua National College famous. At present, there are four levels of cultural exchange and integration: one is the exchange and integration of humanities and social sciences. Since the reform and opening up, China's social sciences have developed rapidly, and the role of economists and sociologists is greater than that of humanities scholars. This is a good thing, but we can't help but see that in a sense, academic utilitarianism is related to this bias. To realize the inheritance and innovation of culture, we must revitalize the humanities, make the humanities and social sciences develop synchronously and play a unique role in higher education. The second is the integration of humanities and natural sciences. From a global perspective, as early as the mid-20th century, British scholar C.P. Si Nuo put forward two cultural problems, namely, the lack of communication and mutual understanding between the scientific culture of natural science and the humanistic culture. This gap still exists today. To realize cultural inheritance and innovation, it is necessary to eliminate the prejudice in these two cultures and get through the connection between them. After the accumulation of 1 year, the cultural quality education carried out by Chinese universities under the leadership of the Ministry of Education has made certain achievements, but it only affects a few famous universities and its scope is limited. In the future, it needs to be brought into the category of cultural education in colleges and universities proposed by General Secretary Hu Jintao, and it should be promoted in theory and practice. The third is the integration of academics and society. Academic research needs meditation, but it is never divorced from society. Any academic research needs to face reality and keep up with the pace of social development. This requires universities to attach importance to social practice, implement scholars' humanistic concern for social responsibility and cultivate students' sense of social responsibility. The fourth is the integration of man and nature. With the development of society, people are more and more aware that the ecology of society and nature is an inseparable whole, and human beings need to form a harmonious relationship with the environment and nature. Academic research and teaching in universities need to make new breakthroughs in this respect. The writer is the director of China Institute of Thought and Culture of Northwest University.